Galen's Collection of Useful Posts from the Writing Forums

Originally Posted by Potty

I agree with offeiriad. I sent out 10 sample edits. Some of which were just silly in what they wanted as payment. I finally settled on one who charged fairly and seems nice to boot. Won't change him for anything now.

That is of course if you feel you want one. But as lou says, if you have the ability, why pay someone to tell you stuff you already know?

Originally Posted by hyphenman

My own take is that humor is no more or no less appropriate in a novel than it is in life. If a novel is to realistically portray life, whether past, present, future or imaginary, then humor should appear as frequently or as infrequently as it does in life.

I don't think it matters whether you are a funny person or not, the same as it doesn't matter whether you can write about murder without actually being a murderer. What matters is whether you can see humor, even in the unfunniest

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#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.#2: You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won't see what the story is actually about til you're at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine

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Originally Posted by Galen

What about humor?

I love Janet Evanovich and she makes sex funny. All of my friends love her and we share her books among ourselves and others. She cracks me up. She has a way of saying things that I thought would be impolite in public but somehow she adds a charm that makes it ok. Now, if I recall there has been only one scene that I read and I have read many of her books that was a bit too explicit for me. To me it crossed over from funny to cold erotica.

Also, while

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Originally Posted by Terry D

Here again, as in the outlining thread, much depends on the writer's own make-up and what they expect to get from a "how to" book. If you want to find a book that will tell you how to choose the right story, and the right words, and what sequence to put them in to build a bestseller you are not going to find it. Some books breakdown well written works and find patterns within their structure which they try to pass on to the writing-readers. If you want to be conscious of your structure

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